Allotments We wish that the section of the Land Utilization
Bill which provides allotments could be detached and passed quickly by itself. What happened in the Rhondda Valley, thanks to the energy and imagination of Mr. John • Robson and the Society of Friends in starting unemployed millers on allotments, was a portent. The experiment extended to Durham, Northumberland, the West Riding, Staffordshire and Lancashire. Within six months 80,000 applications were made for allotments. Even on an allotment a man can gain much experience of cultivation and of the ways of Nature ; but, best of all, he may achieve that devotion to a life on the land which will make him contented if not prosperous when he has the good fortune to be promoted to a small-holding. The natural lover of the land must be left as far as possible to fight his battle in his own way when once he has received the necessary instruction. Official interference or fussiness estranges him, and finally kills his enthusiasm. Fortunately Dr. Addison has several times lately expressed an abhorrende of bureaucratic control. Like all his Socialist colleagues he has learned much in office.
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